IGNDC Sound Test: D2 Sketches

Kenji Eno knows music, no doubt about it. Join us in a retro look at this first D2 soundtrack.

By IGN Staff

Editor's Note: The IGN Soundtrack Review has changed to the IGNDC Sound Test. We think this name is cooler. That is all.

You may question the simple gameplay and tedious wandering back and forth associated with D2, but you will never take MY FREEEEEEEDOM!!!!

That is to say, few would raise issue with the background music contained within this final WARP soundtrack. Look past the problematic US voices, and you'll hear Kenji Eno in his element, as music producer for the game. A half-page picture of Eno once appeared in a major American newspaper, depicting the Japanese gaming icon guitar in hand, and proclaiming him as a new generation of game developer. Considering this, and the amount of attention his games seem to place in the sound department, it's pretty clear that Eno is a sound man first and foremost.

We're talking about the man who produced an audio-only game in the form of Real Sound for Saturn and Dreamcast. Enemy Zero, WARP's main production in the 32-bit era, also placed sound in the forefront, as the aliens who were stalking a frightened Laura Lewis were invisible. Surprisingly, Eno didn't craft the music for this latter title. That honor went to Michael Nyman of The Piano fame, whose score provided enough tension in all the right areas to make Enemy Zero one of the most frightening game experiences this side of System Shock and Resident Evil. But now, Eno is back as not only the producer of D2 the game, but also as composer and arranger of the game's audio side.

Over a year before D2 saw release in Japan, the first official soundtrack, D2 Sketches, was made available. The soundtrack consists of 99 tracks, although only 11 have any sound and only 10 of those have names. The remaining 87 are each twenty seconds of hiss and were apparently included in the soundtrack just to fill up the rest of the CD - weird!

The ten named music tracks vary in style from classical violin, piano and cello pieces, to pieces consisting of computer synthesized sounds - exactly like the in-game background music, you could say. The ten tracks all have the word "Sketch" in their name, with five called "Rhythm Sketch" and the other five labeled "Main Theme," "Snow Theme," "Morning Theme," "Love Theme," and "Fear Theme." The last four manage to evoke an appropriate feeling in the listener, with the snow theme suggesting loneliness and the harsh violin and piano of the Fear Theme providing tension.

You'll recognize many of the theme songs from the game in these pieces. The first Rhythm Sketch consists of the synthesized track played at the title screen of the game. The second Rhythm Sketch is a remix based off of that little melody you hear when leaving into the snow. I haven't played through the game in its entirety (I don't think I've even gotten through the first disk), but I don't recall having heard what the soundtrack refers to as the main theme for the game. Maybe its one of those "We used this song to inspire us" things.

And that one nameless audio track? It's track 99 on the disk, and isn't even mentioned on the CD jacket. In fact, I discovered it only as a result of having forgotten that my CD player was running through those 87 silent tracks. Then, all of a sudden, I hear a variation of that snow entry melody. It scared the hell out of me.

[ DETAILS ]PRICE: 2548 YENCATALOGUE #: FSCA-10040PACKAGING: The CD is housed in a fold-out paper case. The package includes a transparent sheet listing the tracks, and a foil picture of Kenji Eno (seriously).